


In Calm Waters

by Draco_sollicitus



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A/B/O verse, Alpha Poe Dameron, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega AU, Beta Finn, Engineer Rey, F/M, Falling In Love, Modern AU, Omega Rey, PTSD, Pilot Poe, Praise Kink, resisting stereotypes, smut in second chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-28 05:02:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17781059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: Rey Smith, an Omega who presented late, meets Poe Dameron, an Alpha unlike anyone she's ever met. Sparks fly, people fall in love (and this fic truly earns an E rating). The two work together to build a relationship built on mutual trust and respect in a world that claims they should be nothing more than their biologies.(Happy Valentine's Day)





	1. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melanoradrood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanoradrood/gifts).



> So! If you aren't familiar with A/B/O dynamics, please know that it is super explicit and a lot kinky. It involves different biology than 'normal universe" humans, and it also involves things like knotting and mating and designation-based heats or rut cycles. 
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> If you're curious about the 'verse, or not really a smut fan, chapter one is smutless! 
> 
> The other chapter(s)....not so much.

Rey Smith presents as an Omega when she’s eighteen years old.

It happens very suddenly - she’s been growing since she learned how to properly steal, how to pilfer food from the backs of restaurants and how to knick leftovers off cafe tables left behind by wasteful patrons and tired waiters, and when she passed five foot six at the age of fifteen, no hint of a heat (and definitely no hint of a rut either - Rey was stubborn, out-spoken, and brash, but she wasn’t aggressive or big or  _ loud _ , and there’d never been any debate of her being an Alpha), the doctor at the free clinic in Jakku - a kind teacher had driven her there after Rey had mumbled something about  _ afford  _ and  _ too far to walk  _ \- had smiled distractedly at her and scribbled  _ Beta  _ as her designation on her official health form.

(When her heat finally comes, Rey does not change her designation).

She senses it when it comes, discomfort trickling down her spine, and it clicks painfully together as she sits at her work bench in the garage where she managed to sweet talk her way into a job two months prior, right before she graduated.

(Against all odds, Rey Smith had been valedictorian of her class. She’d applied to college, mainly because the same kind teacher who’d taken her to the free clinic when she was fifteen slapped her upside the head with an application during study hall and wouldn’t budge until she filled it out. But, college starts in  _ August,  _ and it’s only  _ July,  _ and she needs to  _ live _ ).

Rey’s back has been hurting for a week, and her throat too if she’s being honest. A summer cold, she’d thought, one that was making her cranky and weak and tired all the time. Rey had drank probably three liters of water by 2:00 p.m., and here she is, at her workbench, starting to sweat although the temperature in the garage is logically more than comfortable. She sweats through her shirt, and her jumpsuit, and when she unzips it, she keeps sweating.

A head swivels around to look at her as she cleans engine parts, dabbing at her forehead with the back of her hand as she writhes, some sort of storm she doesn’t understand building under her skin. 

“Hey - are you feeling okay?”

“Fine.” Rey mumbles the word, feeling anything but. The Beta frowns at her, concern apparent in their eyes. Will is nice and sweet, and Rey’s fond of them and their doting husband, the quietest Alpha she’s ever met (and hadn’t  _ that  _ stirred up trouble in Jakku, that little podunk town, when an Alpha had chosen a Beta).

“Are you sure?”

“I’m...okay. I just feel-” She waves a hand in front of her face, fighting the odd urge to cry.  _ Is she getting her period? _

Rey learned about periods in health class, of course, and several of her Beta friends had shared their stories with her, but Rey had never gotten hers. Too skinny, of course. But Rey’s been able to gain more weight since wiggling out from underneath the thumb of her shitty ex-foster father in the last two months, so maybe this is it?

Pain hits her in the gut then, like a sledgehammer, right around the time that the thought of periods occurs to her.

Rey knows what period cramps are. And either something is  _ very  _ wrong with her uterus, or - or -

“Shit.” Will stands up quickly, their stool falling backwards. “C’mon kid, let’s get you home.”

“I’m fine,” Rey whispers, mortified. “I’m -”

Multiple employees turn to face her, and she squeaks at the way their faces change, some in revulsion, some in interest, or worse, greed.

Most of these people are her friends (if Rey has friends). Most of these people she trusts.

Right now, she doesn’t trust any of them.

Except for Will, who stands at her side, neutral and calm and friendly. 

(She can  _ smell  _ Tim across the garage. And Elyse. And - it’s too much, and not enough, and she wants to vomit or scream or rip her skin off. Rey doesn’t understand).

“Please let me take you home?” Will smells like nothing, a point of nothingness in a small, cramped space suddenly reverberated with scent and sound and  _ feeling.  _ Rey can smell it all, she can sense eyes on her, like physical contact, and she nods numbly as Will grabs her backpack for her and grips her upper arm calmly and firmly, helping her stand on her shaking legs.

They walk quickly to the exit, and Rey winces when their supervisor calls after them.

“She’s got a stomach bug, dude! I’ll pick up the rest of the work for her shift later.” 

“You don’t have to,” Rey whispers, and she’s hit with another crippling wave of pain. Then, it feels as though she’s wet herself, and she almost sobs in embarrassment, at the realization of what it is.

“Shit, hon, did you not notice - or is it-”

“I’m a Beta.” Rey barely gets it out. “I - I’m a Beta.” She doesn’t understand.

(Four days later, after the terror has passed, she’ll call up the teacher who’d helped her so much in high school, and Maz will sigh in sympathy. Two hours after that phone call, Maz will be sitting next to Rey at a nicer clinic than the one they went to years before, and she will pay for Rey’s suppressants in cash. Two years’ worth. She will not accept repayment).

“Rey, honey.” Will looks at her with deep sympathy when they have to lower her carefully into their backseat, when they have to buckle her seatbelt for her because her muscles are screaming in protest (and she doesn’t quite know what they’re protesting, but she’d like to help them out, really, she would). “I don’t think you’re a Beta.”

(She presented late, she finds out. A combination of stress and malnutrition delaying her first heat for years - and, whatever the  _ fuck  _ is in her biology made her willowy and tall, not short and curvy and tempting and lovable. Rey smells the part, and gets heats like the part, but she does not look the part or act the part, something that should probably cause her more stress than it does. But there are only about five days, once every four months, that it causes her any kind of concern at all, thanks to Maz)

After a stressful four days spent in a room locked in the inside - Will and their husband allow her to use their guestroom, with the hope that his Alpha scent will keep unwanted attention away - Rey emerges into a world that is suddenly very, very different. 

When she was a Beta, Rey Smith was invisible.

Now that she’s an Omega, she learns that she is anything but.

And, all too quickly, she learns that she is anything but the kind of Omega that an Alpha would want.

(She thinks to herself that it’s better that way).

***

_ Five Years Later _

“Hey there,” it’s the voice that hits her first, and Rey forces herself to breathe through her mouth before she turns to greet the man with the warm, low voice. 

“Hi,” she says, and oh God, well, Finn hadn’t been kidding. He’s pretty; dark, curly hair, tan skin, white teeth, a jaw strong enough to sit on— _ Jesus, Rey, get it together.  _ He’s also dressed nicely, casual but not sloppy, in clothes that suit his build, stocky and honestly somewhat short. 

“I’m Poe.” He breaks her blatant examination of his body and extends his hand, and she appreciates that it’s about six inches from what she’d consider her personal bubble. She also appreciates that while she’d taken easily ten seconds to size him up – Finn had mentioned he was short for an Alpha, but this guy radiates so much charm and charisma that it’s hard to care that he’s only a few inches taller than Rey, who is, honestly, a bad Omega to begin with – he hasn’t checked her out at all. 

_ Because he looks at us and finds us lacking,  _ her inner Omega whispers. Rey tells it to shut the fuck up.

“Rey.”

“I know.” It’s said with a cocky smile as he slides onto the barstool next to her, and Rey doesn’t really mind the cheek. She’s a sarcastic piece of shit too, so really, this should go pretty well. 

“You do?” Rey cocks an eyebrow at him. “Stalker?”

“No.” To his credit, he blushes. “No, um – Finn showed me a picture.” Poe fiddles with a napkin on the bar, and Rey smiles at his deepening flush.

“Was Finn trying to entice you to take out his poor, single Omega friend?” She asks, not caring if it’s true. She is poor. She is single. And her Beta best friend and his Beta wife find it oddly, pathetically sweet that she hasn’t had a serious boyfriend or girlfriend. Ever.

“No,” Poe laughs, nervously. “No, uh, we were talking one day about…stuff…and he showed me your picture. So I asked him if you might be open to going on a date with me.”

“You…” Rey’s mouth gapes open. “You saw a picture of me, and then actively asked to go on a date with me? Did Finn mention the part where I’m a total, bitchy jackass?”

“He said something about spunk,” Poe admits, but he’s frowning at her. “Why would it be so hard to believe that I’d see you and not want to go on a date with you?” Rey doesn’t say anything, just folds her too-skinny arms over her flat chest, and kicks her too-long legs out from where they’re tucked under the barstool. She isn’t the classic, small, curvy Omega. When they’re out in public and Alphas scent her, they gravitate towards  _ Rose,  _ who’s a Beta, but looks like an Omega. 

“Come on,” Rey huffs when he doesn’t say anything else. “I mean…look at me, and then look at – well, you.” She gestures over his body, trying to, without speaking, point out his absurdly muscular thighs showcased by his tight pants, his broad chest, the muscular forearms exposed by his rolled-up sleeves. 

‘Nonsense,” Poe shrugs and smiles at her, and it’s a really, stupid-nice smile. “Finn showed me your picture because he knows I have a type.”

“Tall? Stubborn? Scrawny?” Rey frowns at the thought that an Alpha would even want a piece of work like her. She’s well aware she’s not what Alphas want.

“Smart,” Poe returns, signaling the bartender. “Too smart to be caught up in what our designations expect of us.” The cocked eyebrow is a challenge, and she realizes that she’s playing right into the game she hates, so she nods, smiles back at him, and looks over at the approaching bartender. “I’ll have a whisky. Neat.”

“Got it. And your lady?” The bartender’s a Beta but assuredly realizes that they’re an Alpha and an Omega.

“I don’t know.” Poe looks at her and smiles tightly. “What do you want,  _ Rey _ ?” He emphasizes her name, the corner of his eye twitching as though he’s irritated on her behalf. 

“Whatever lager you have on tap,” Rey says quickly, not wanting anyone to get huffy over what’s a common, everyday microaggression. She’s had worse. 

Poe grins at her. “See? Never would have guessed that.” Rey shrugs and stares at the wood of the bar, her cheeks flushing pleasantly at Poe’s now easy-going smile, and, so far, his ability to communicate with her without trying to scent her, or worse.

“So, Rey, what do you do?”

“I’m an engineer,” Rey says, already tensing for the  _ isn’t that a little weird for an Omega _ ? question that she always gets. 

“Awesome! What kind of engineer?”

“Automotive design.” Rey finds herself smiling now, a more restrained smile than she’d give Finn or her beloved cat, but a smile nonetheless. “I started working in a shop when I was in high school, and I ended up liking it too much to let it go.”

“Damn.” Poe shakes his head grinning. “Finn said you were smart, but he didn’t mention anything about cars. My buddy Snap would probably talk your ear off, guy’s been building cars from parts since we were in middle school.”

“Oh, really?” The bartender returns with their drinks, and Rey accepts her beer with a smile, sipping at it and raising her eyebrows, indicating that Poe should keep going. He smiles at her and takes a sip of his whiskey before setting it down, resting his (distractingly) muscular forearms on the bar.

“Yeah, he used to drag me to the dump most afternoons, make me dig for scrap with him.” Poe rolls his eyes with obvious affection, which just makes Rey like him more. “My dad caught us sneaking back after curfew once - someone had just  _ left  _ a ‘67 Volkswagen bus at the yard, and we had to think our asses off to get it out of there, considering neither of us had a license - and I sorta hoped he’d be mad and ground me. Instead, he showed up the next day with a toolbox and helped us fix it.” His tone suggests that Poe would have been much happier had his father grounded him, and not prolonged his mechanical tinkering. 

“Was it a 21 window?” Rey asks with actual curiosity. 

Poe laughs and hangs his head. “You know it. It still runs. My mom was obsessed with it when we brought it home, and uh.” He flushes then, and Rey smells a wave of - sadness? pour out from him, staining the air quickly in its morose shades. “It meant a lot to her, and my pa, so I kept it.”

Rey takes a sip to give him a second and wipes a hint of the beer from her top lip before rubbing her hand on her jeans. Before she can think better of it, she leans into Poe’s side (and regretfully, he’s every inch as solid and warm and real and  _ nice  _ as she’d suspected), and smiles at him when he looks over. “Do you have a picture?”

Poe Dameron, as it turns out, has lots of pictures. Pictures of his Volkswagen bus, pictures of Snap (as a child, as a teenager, a young adult, and now), pictures of his father (younger, looking more like present-Poe but with a narrower face and eyes set a little closer together, and older, salt and pepper in an endearingly charming way), pictures of his dog, a delightfully fat Corgi (Beatrice, or Bee, whom Poe declares is a  _ holy terror _ ; both as a puppy, and as a chubby adult), and pictures of his beautiful, mildly terrifying mother (only as as a young woman). 

“Enough about me,” Poe mutters, the tops of his cheeks ruddy. “What about you?”

(Rey’s seen enough of Alphas to know when they’re  _ talking about themselves -  _ and they can really, really talk about themselves. They talk about accomplishments, about their jobs, about their bank accounts, about the risky whatever-they-did in whatever-tropical-paradise they traveled to. They talk about their hair, their famous ex, and they talk about their own interests. Sometimes, they talk about their dick or their knot or worse. Poe Dameron did talk for a long time, but he talked about people he loves. And Rey thinks that tells her much, much more about him than talking about himself ever could).

“What about me?” She says after taking a large gulp of beer (the second, a sign that she doesn’t inherently distrust him - she felt comfortable enough to order a second drink). “I uh...I don’t really have … a lot of pictures.”

She’s embarrassed then, in an unpleasant way, of her camera roll. 

(Rey Smith has precisely five photos on her phone - one of a design that she doodled, one of Finn and Rose, one of just Finn, and two of her cat.)

“So.” Poe leans into her this time, not enough to really crowd her, just a pleasant brush of their shoulders that makes heat crackle under her skin a totally new way. “Tell me about the things you like. Things that make you happy. Or unhappy.”

“Really?” Rey wrinkles her nose and swirls the contents of her drink, elbows on the bar. “You really want to hear all that boring stuff?”

“I really do,” Poe says solemnly, his eyes twinkling at her as he turns in his seat to look at her more intently. He’s still on his first drink - even ordered a Sprite for his next drink- and although Rey’s breathing through her mouth to be polite, she can still sense his smell, steady and calming and - 

_ Careful, Smith.  _

Still though, Poe smiles at her, a soft and charming and comforting smile, and Rey feels herself relax, incrementally. She might not be as relaxed as some of the other bar patrons might be, the people who are on dates and tossing their hair and flirting and batting their eyes in a way she never perfected.  But, she lets her guard down, just a little, half an inch at most, but still. 

(It’s the most relaxed she’s been around an Alpha for years).

Rey smiles back, sets her drink down, and tucks her hair behind her ears. And while she feels like she talks for far too long, Poe’s eyes don’t lose their wondering sheen and his smile never wavers. Rey talks until she’s actually ready to stop, and when she’s done, Poe seems genuinely grateful for the information she’s given him, like he can sense how much it takes for her to open up, even a little.

(It’s the farthest she’s felt from a nobody in a long, long time).


	2. Rational Creatures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey go on a number of dates; after a surprising turn of events at Poe's apartment, Rey asks him to help her with something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Switching POV -  
> ** means POV switch. The chapter starts in Poe's POV  
> *** means time skip, but not POV shift
> 
>    
> Warning: When Rey's going over what she is/isn't interested in, it's hinted that she's had some shitty experiences with sex in the past (name-calling and bossiness with an Alpha less concerned with active consent than Poe - aka the issues inherent in a lot of ABO)
> 
> Smut alert: the smut in this chapter is masturbation! 
> 
> (Yes there's a third chapter now because yes I added 3500 words to this part and oops)
> 
> There's kink besides the smut though - we're starting to reach a lot of ABO dynamic.

Poe Dameron successfully asks Rey Smith for a kiss on their third date.

Their second date had been to a baseball game, his suggestion, where she’d stolen his beer in the fourth inning and smirked at him in a way that made him want to flag down the nearest vendor and buy more drinks for her to steal from him, if it meant she’d make that face at him again and again. When he’d walked her to the front of her apartment complex afterwards, she’d put her hands in her pockets and looked between him and the door enough times that he realized she wasn’t quite comfortable with him asking yet. So, he just smiled and told her goodnight and got back in his car, waiting for her to enter into the safety of her foyer before driving off into the night.

Their third date had been a mutual choice; they’d been texting back and forth, little messages here and there, with enough frequency to make something low in his gut rumble in a contented way (she’s _thinking_ about him when he isn’t _there,_ that has to be a good sign), and just infrequent enough that it makes him drop whatever he’s holding when he feels his phone buzz. He’d sent her a picture of Beatrice on a walk through the woods, the autumn leaves thick underfoot, which had led to talking about fall activities, which had led Rey to admit she’d never gone _apple-picking,_ so of course Poe offers to drive them up the mountain to the orchard, so she can pick apples to her heart’s content.

(She looks so pretty standing there among the trees that Poe’s heart stops, and he’s _sure_ he unleashes what could only be considered an extremely inappropriate amount of hormones into the air, but other than Rey turning a prettier shade of red than any of the apples he’s hauling around for her, she doesn’t mention it. She just flits to the next tree and grabs a Granny Smith before biting into it and smiling at him over her shoulder. Poe has to hold the bushel under his arm to adjust his pants, an action he prays no one else sees, but when he turns around and spies another Alpha smirking at him knowingly, Poe gives him a look that’s a combination of embarrassment and snarl)

When he walks her up to the door that evening, the sun still setting behind her, catching the secret strands of red that are tucked in among her thick brown hair, Poe can’t fight back the question.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, praying it makes him seem less threatening (and something in him snarls every time Rey flinches from an unexpected sound or something in her face shutters when an unexpected Alpha gets close to them, but he tucks the knowledge away, waiting for her to tell him about it, but deciding to move as slowly as possible until she asks him not to, and if she never asks him not to, he won’t mind), and smiles at her before ducking his head.

“I had a really nice time,” Rey laughs, holding her bags of apples in front of her, her smile filling her cheeks and wrinkling her nose in a way that isn’t goddamn fair. Poe nods and licks his bottom lip, wincing when it lets another slip of _her_ in.

(Here’s the thing: Rey on a normal day smells - God, Poe doesn’t have a word for it. He’s never scented her of course, that’s too personal, too intimate, and she’s never given permission. But that doesn’t mean he can’t find her scent weaving in and out of the air around them. Rey Smith smells like the desert, and something almost like the earth when it rains, and a lot like flowers. But right now, when she laughs, the scent picks up a tone of golden that Poe can really only call sunshine)

It slips out:

“Can I kiss you?” He winces at the abruptness of it, winces when Rey blinks in surprise. “Sorry. I just. I really, really like you. And I had a nice time today, too. And I’d like to do it again - have a nice time that is. WIth you. Again.” Poe drags his hand through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut. He’s about to mutter _forget it, I’m sorry,_ when Rey tugs on the front of his jacket.

He opens his eyes, surprised, because she hadn’t been standing close enough for that a few seconds ago - like he’d ask her when he was crowding her personal space because that wouldn’t _really_ be asking, that’d be intimidating - and finds Rey smiling at him shyly.

“You can.”

“I can see you again?”

Rey laughs, nods. She’s incandescent, and Poe’s more than overwhelmed by how it washes over him, the smell of Rey happy and light and unburdened (always the hint of sadness around her, of anger, or the urge to fight or run, a hint of _something_ that makes Poe willing to take on a fight that he doesn’t even know the shape of yet). “That. And the other thing.”

“The other” - it hits him, and Poe grins at her. “Oh.”

He takes the bag of apples from her hand and setting them on the step next to them. Next, he leans in, slowly, trying not to breathe in too deep because he knows something in him might frighten her if he does (and he hates it, he honestly hates it sometimes, all of the weight surrounding their designations, the way society, even their own biology, tells them that it’s _his_ task to take, and _hers_ to give - can’t he give her something? Can’t he give her everything? He just - he never wants her to be afraid. Not with him. It would kill him, he’s sure).

A second before his lips brush over hers, he whispers, “Yeah?”

Rey whispers back _yeah,_ and Poe Dameron’s lost, fucked beyond all belief.

(Afterwards, they part, each breathing a little differently, and Poe’s drowning in it all, drowning in the best way, and Rey presses the backs of her hands to her cheeks in a way so sweet it makes his teeth hurt, and says, “Do you want to get dinner?” And he does. He really does)

***

Rey Smith visits Poe Dameron’s apartment six weeks after their first date.

(He needs to get Finn the best birthday present ever - not only because Finn’s a great guy, the best, but also because _holy shit,_ he literally changed Poe’s life)

Poe invites Rey to a dinner in his apartment, and she agrees - after an hour long break in their text conversation that has him so nervous he understands the phrase _sweating buckets,_ but it turns out she just dropped her phone at work and couldn’t find it - and he suggests Friday, which a decent four day window to prepare, and he can do this, he can provide for his -

( _No. Not your Omega. Not yours._ )

He picks a day a good amount of time away, but of course Friday rolls around and his apartment is still...not perfect, so he dashes around when he gets home after five, trying to get everything straightened out. Poe considers his medals about half a dozen times, puts them away, takes them back out, puts them away, takes them back out, grumbling under his breath before leaving them out. Rey knows he’s a veteran, knows he left the service, but doesn’t know about the bullet he took, doesn’t know about the Medal of Honor that’s nestled next to his Purple Heart.

Beatrice isn’t here; she’s at his dad’s for the day because he figured it’d be easier than having her under foot while he’s trying to woo a very shy Omega, who seems to like dogs, but he knows for a fact is more of a cat person. His apartment is plenty clean, as Poe vacuums once a week, but he does it again anyway, and swiffers the entirety of the front hall and kitchen until the hardwood shines.

(Omegas like safety, and warmth, and comfort, and clean spaces, after all - Alphas who can provide safety are _good_ because it means they can protect pups, and if the home is nice, it means a nest will be comfortable, and nests means pups, and pups mean - Poe hisses to himself to _get it together_ , spends thirty seconds in the bathroom breathing in through his nose slowly, and out through his mouth).

It’s almost six, which means Rey’s going to be here any minute, so Poe changes his shirt one last time and remembers that he didn’t make his bed this morning - but Rey isn’t coming into his bedroom, he reminds himself, that’s not what this is, this is them spending time together, getting to know each other, and Rey doesn’t want _that_ from him, not yet at least. And, if she sees his Purple Heart and if they talk about it, talk about what still hovers over him like a cloud on the best of the days, she really might not ever want that with him.

(It’s four letters, he tells himself. Four letters he has to get out - he practices in the mirror, sometimes, and he’s practiced at least ten times today. Poe runs a hand through his hair, puts his hands in his pockets and stares at himself in the mirror. _I have PTSD,_ he whispers, before clearing his throat. _PTSD. Hey, Rey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you._ His name is Poe Dameron, he is 32 years old, he has a dog he loves, he calls his dad twice a day, and the sunburst of scar tissue on his lower left side is far from the worst souvenir he got overseas)

There’s a knock at the door, and Poe quits rehearsing because it’s _showtime._ He even does some jazz hands, trying to shake off the tension and the worry that none of this is quite good enough, before he opens the door.

(He’s a confident person, he really is, been accused of everything from _charismatic_ to _cocky_ to _arrogant_ , and the war couldn’t really change that about him, as hard as it had tried, but when it comes to Rey Smith, Poe feels terrifyingly out of his depth because every instinct in him, Alpha or otherwise, is telling him that she’s the real deal)

**

Rey squares her shoulders as she waits for the door to open. She’s gripping a bottle of wine by the neck, almost like it’s a weapon (and she has used one for a weapon before), willing herself not to bolt, especially when the door opens.

She likes Poe Dameron, much more than she should, but the smell that tumbles out of his apartment with force equivalent to an eruption is unbridled, unrestrained Alpha. This is _his_ space. This is an Alpha’s home, and she is walking into it.

Poe steps out of the way and takes the bottle of wine with a pleased smile. “Thank you,” he says genuinely, and it swirls around Rey, heady and syrupy and dangerous. “I appreciate it.”

He chooses not to comment at the way her body language shifted at his pleased reaction, and instead turns to give her some room; a timer goes off in the kitchen, and he excuses himself to go check it out.

(Poe Dameron does _not_ close the door behind them, something that Rey notices once he’s walked away and the air has cleared, somewhat. The door is open, her escape is unblocked, and Poe seems entirely unconcerned with keeping her here, whistling merrily in the kitchen where she can hear him fiddling with the oven, and over the Alpha smell, there’s the smell of dinner and - )

Rey closes the door, but does not lock it, and slips her shoes off. She sets them carefully next to the boots Poe has near the door, and then she peers around his living room with great interest.

“Where should I put my coat?” Rey calls out, slipping the thin jacket off and eyeing the nearest chair dubiously. She can always just put it on the floor.

“There’s a closet across from the front door,” Poe answers, sounding slightly distracted as he checks on dinner. Rey hums and opens the closet door, but when she grabs a hanger, a pile of large white posters on the floor of the closet catches her eye.

“God, sorry, I should have offered to help you with that - Oh.” Poe walks over and sees what she’s staring at and his voice shifts to sound strangely shy for an Alpha.

_Heat =/= Consent_

_Don’t let your Rut talk for you_

_Mating =/= Ownership_

“Quite a collection,” Rey says, eyebrows raised.

She can smell the wave of embarrassment from Poe, so she turns to smile at him. He’s rubbing the back of his neck, surely a nervous habit – is he _aware_ that he’s brushing his scent gland, increasing the intensity of his scent washing over her? God, he smells like a forest, like firewood, like something she wants to sink her teeth into, or rather, have _him_ sink his teeth into her and –

Rey rubs her thighs together, mortified, and Poe…he’s enough of a gentleman to hold his breath and turn around.

“I’m – um – I’m sort of – I go to marches,” he says, back of his neck burning red, and she can fucking see it, see his swollen gland peeking out from his collar, and she wants to know if that red would get deeper if she ran her tongue along –

“Marches?” Rey repeats, grabbing a sign and examining it. The lingering scent of other Alphas and Omegas (she wrinkles her nose at the latter) cover the sign.

“Yeah. I’m sort of,” Poe’s turned back around, and he grins sheepishly. “I might be…president…of a group called ‘Alphas for Omegas.’”

“I’ve heard of them!” Rey perks up even more, and closes the closet door, which seems to help Poe relax. “They were on the cover of the _Chandrila Times_! They called them the Resistance.”

“That’s the goal.” Poe shrugs with a more confident smile. “Resist our conditioning, resist what society tells us our biology means, resist giving into biological urges at the cost of someone else’s safety.”

Rey nods, something squirming in her gut, something hot and uncomfortable, demanding to be let out. The way Poe looks at her tells her he’s caught onto her shift in mood, so she throws caution to the wind and grabs his hand.

“Thank you.” She looks up at him from under her eyelashes, something she’s done all of never in her life. Poe seems caught off guard by it as well, but not unpleased, which has part of her almost purring in success. “I - Omegas - we get used to being shoved around. And I’ve never been a very good Omega, but it’s still been...hard, to be in a world where there aren’t that many of us, and we’re all expected to be brainless second fiddles to someone else. So...thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for being halfway decent,” Poe mutters before he tilts his head and frowns. “Who said you aren’t a good Omega?”

Rey shakes her head and shuffles her feet. “Never mind.” She squeezes his hand and smiles, which seems to distract him slightly. “What’s for dinner? It smells delicious.”

(There’s something she needs to tell him, something she’s practiced, again and again, but she can’t quite get out - the reality of her situation, the things in her past. If there’s ever been an Alpha she wants to share that part of herself with, it’s this Alpha, but he’s made her dinner - a rarity, as Omegas are supposed to cook and clean, but looking around Poe’s apartment, she can see that he can do those things perfectly well for himself, a first for the Alphas she’s met - and she wants this evening to be pleasant, damnit).

***

After dinner, which is as delicious as it smelled, Rey offers to help clean up, but Poe shoos her away with a smile. She watches him wash the dishes, and they make idle chitchat; eventually as Poe’s finishing up, Rey wanders down the hallway towards the bathroom, which Poe had told her was two doors down to the right.

She opens the door and immediately realizes her mistake, a silly one, confusing left and right which really isn’t like her. Rey wants to blame the heady scent of Poe that absolutely saturates the air, the walls, the furniture, and (she imagines) the carpet, overwhelming her senses and making it nearly impossible to think.

And when she opens the wrong door, it becomes even more difficult.

It’s his _bedroom._

Rey startles when she hears footsteps coming down the hallway, and almost jumps out of her skin in her haste to apologize. “Sorry!” She yelps, stumbling half a step back. “Sorry, I just - opened the wrong-”

“It’s okay.” Poe holds his hand out to her, and she hesitates a second before taking it, weighing the option of running for the front door because what if she crossed a boundary, a line, what if she upset him by poking around - “Hey.” He rubs his thumb over her knuckles, and Rey realizes she’s shaking a little. “It’s more than okay. Do you want to look around?”

_Yes._

“No.” Rey shakes her head, eyes wide. “No, and I’m sorry, I just opened the wrong door, I wasn’t trying to poke around or anything.”

“Even if you were.” Poe shrugs and smiles. “I wouldn’t mind. Here. If you don’t need to use the restroom, I will?” Rey nods, her need to pee receding in her mortification, and Poe smiles kindly and gestures at his bedroom. “Go right ahead, I really don’t mind.”

He closes the door between them, leaving Rey with a conundrum - it would almost be ruder at this point if she _didn’t_ look. So, she flips the lightswitch on and takes a step into the room. And then another step. And another.

It draws her in, strangely. Poe’s bedroom is much neater than her own, decorated with warm colors and sci-fi movie posters. There’s more than one model airplane sitting out, and she eyes the bookshelf near his bed and sees he owns easily fifty books, mainly sci-fi, but some non fiction.

There’s a fluffy dog bed in the corner, and a thick tan rug on the floor, and Rey wants to take her socks off and wiggle her toes in it, a strange urge that she doesn’t quite understand.

(The smell is almost too much, it’s surrounding her and pulling her in, closer and closer to where it’s strongest, a halfmade bed with an orange comforter and soft pillows, and Rey thinks to herself that it won’t hurt to sit for a second, won’t be a problem if she just lies down for a second)

Before she realizes it, Rey’s sitting on the bed, running her fingers along the comforter. The smell of forest and firewood is stronger here, as well as the powerful undercurrent of _Poe,_ the musk of a strong, young Alpha that typically sets Rey’s teeth on edge when she gets close enough to it.

But it smells like Poe. Poe, not some random Alpha.

Rey pushes the blanket towards the middle of the bed, thinking she’ll just...straighten it out and then stand up, but instead, she bunches it up more. That seems more right than wrong, and she hums to herself before pulling up the corners until it’s bundled together. That also seems right.

Rey starts to hum some more, a deep vibrating hum in her chest, and she distantly thinks she’s never hummed like that, but she can’t care about it, not when there are pillows near the top of the bed, pillows that should be _in_ the blanket. Rey runs the fabric happily through her hands, marveling at it, marveling at the choice Poe made. A smart Alpha, then, a good Alpha.

Now that there’s an adequate pile of pillow and blanket in the middle of the bed, Rey feels a surge of pride. There’s some holes, to be sure, but this is the softest thing she’s ever made, and it smells like _Poe,_ which is a good smell, a good Alpha smell, clean and kind and strong.

There’s a knock on the door, and Rey feels a strange despairing sort of defensiveness rise up in her until she turns and sees that it’s Poe in the doorway, looking in at her with a soft, confused smile on his handsome face.

( _Her Alpha is handsome,_ she thinks smugly. Then she freezes: when did he become _her_ Alpha? He doesn’t belong to her. She doesn’t belong to him. This space does not belong to her, so why is her scent beginning to mingle with his? Oh. Oh God, what has she done?)

“Rey?” Poe’s at the side of the bed in a flash, kneeling down and holding a hand out. She realizes he must have smelled her distress, and it makes her flush with embarrassment, and bury her head in the blanket, which is the wrong thing to do because again, this isn’t her fucking blanket. “No, no, sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s okay-”

“I’m sorry.” Rey wants to curl up into a ball and disappear, and she also wants to run away from this apartment and never talk to Poe again. He reaches his hand across the blanket and rests it on her bare ankle, and immediately, she feels soothed.

(She does not want to be soothed. She does not him to let go of her. She wants - she doesn’t know what she wants).

“What are you sorry for?” There’s a lower tone to Poe’s voice now, one she hasn’t heard before, and something instinctively tells her that _that_ is a good sound. She likes that sound. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I don’t know what I was doing,” Rey admits miserably. “I - I swear I’ve never done this before. I -”

“You don’t know?” The pleasant, rumbling tone is gone now, and Rey wants it back, but instead, she can sense his concern bleeding out into his scent and voice. “Rey, you’re nesting.”

“I’m…” Rey lifts her head, brow furrowed. “I’m not pregnant.”

“That’s good to know,” Poe jokes with a fond grin, his hand still light and warm on her ankle. Rey pushes her leg into the contact, and Poe catches the hint, reaching out with his other hand. She takes it, threads their fingers together, waits for him to explain. “You really don’t have to worry though, or apologize.”

“I’ve never done it before,” Rey repeats sullenly. “I thought nesting was for pregnant Omegas. Why would I be nesting?”

“A number of reasons.” Poe frowns at her, which makes her wilt slightly, but he looks thoughtful, not angry. “Did … did they not teach you in school in Jakku?”

Rey wants to run, now.

She doesn’t run.

“I didn’t know I was an Omega until I was 18.” She turns so she’s looking at the ceiling, and not at Poe, and he doesn’t let go of her hand, just squeezes it softly. “I … I always assumed I was a Beta. And by the time I found out, I’d realized what it was like, to be an Omega, especially where I grew up, so I lied and told everyone I was a Beta, and a friend helped me buy the best suppressants on the market.”

“Where you grew up?”

Rey shakes her head, and Poe doesn’t push.

(He’s the least pushy Alpha she’s ever met, and she thinks that’s why she’s so happy to give him parts of herself, why it’s so easy to let her guard down around him. He’s the first Alpha to ever ask to kiss her, after all)

“I really am sorry.” Rey sighs regretfully and goes to wiggle out of the blanket nest, even though her instincts are screaming at her to stay put, to invite the Alpha inside, he’s a good Alpha, a kind Alpha, he’ll be good to her, and eventually to their -

_Dear God._

“I’m not in the least bit upset. The opposite. Here, you can…” Poe shakes his hand free and turns his scent gland, the secondary one on the inside of his wrist, towards her. “If you want?”

Rey nods, pleased that he’s offered this so freely; Poe doesn’t seem to hide anything, something she appreciates impossibly well. So, she lowers her nose to his wrist, well aware of how red her cheeks are, and inhales deeply.

It’s like her body catches on fire, even through the layers of suppressant. If the lingering scent of Poe in his bedroom, in his sheets, was potent, it’s nothing to the rush of it under the thin skin of his wrist, of it singing in his blood so close to her nose, so close to her mouth. Rey wants to lick at his pulse until all she knows is _Poe,_ and she drops his hand, startled at the intensity of emotion that rises up inside her.

(Rey has _never_ been attracted to an Alpha before, not like this. The thing, the secret thing that she hasn’t told Poe, has only ever told Finn, lurks inside her, and she wants to tell him now, needs to tell him, but now there’s need and want and _lust_ pooling inside her, foreign and intense and terrifying, and Rey wants to pull him close and breathe him in at his neck, wants to find where it’s strongest and never let go; she wants to push him away and run from his home and this bed and this nest and never come back because if she wants something this badly, it will hurt when she cannot have it)

Regardless of everything else she smells, she can’t smell the sickly sweet tang of deception - it’s the one benefit, really, of having Omega biology. Sharp sense of smell means she can tell when an Alpha is being duplicitous, a biological instinct to help Omegas get away from bad Alphas before their command or their presence could affect them.

“I believe you,” Rey whispers. And then, as it’s only polite, and she can’t, still can’t, think clearly, she holds out her own hand. “Did you want to-”

“Um.” _Of course he doesn’t._ Poe shifts where he’s still kneeling and then nods, his eyes brighter than they were a second ago. “Thank you, I - I would.” He takes her hand delicately and brings it to his mouth; Poe kisses each knuckle before flipping her hand, cradling it delicately in both of his much larger, rougher hands. He drags his nose along her palm before ending at her wrist, and Rey writhes internally, wanting to burrow down into the nest and pull him with her, and dear _God,_ why is it so warm in here? Was it always this warm in here?

With his nose pressed against her gland, Rey doesn’t dare to breathe, just watches Poe’s face turn pink in certain places; his fingers shift in pressure and place as he holds her arm and breathes deeply, and Rey can feel her blood shift to respond.

She shifts against the blankets, and realizes a beat too late what’s starting to happen.

“Fuck.” Poe’s typical honey sweet voice is almost all edge now, a raspy quality she isn’t used to permeating the word, making her shiver. He lets her go though, and breathes through his mouth for a few seconds. “I -”

“I need to go.” Rey forces herself to emerge from the warmth, and Poe makes a sound of protest, standing up quickly as she does. “I’m, I had a lovely time, but I-” She pulls her phone out, thinking wildly, and fights the urge to groan. _How could she have been so stupid?_

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” Poe looks apologetic, but he also takes five step backwards as he speaks, gesturing to the door. He doesn’t try to stop her, and Rey thinks for a wild, wild moment, that she might already be in love with him (and how hasn’t she noticed? Where has her head been these last few weeks?). “I’m sorry, can I - do you need me to call you a cab?”

“No, I can - I’ll take the bus.” She can make it home like this, can’t she?

“Please?” Poe says the word softly, like it’s breaking him to say it, and Rey looks at him for a long second, even through her panic. “I’m sorry I messed up, but I...I can’t express how much your safety means to me. Let me call an Omega cab service?”

They’re expensive, which is why Rey never uses them, but she knows of it, of course - she thinks it’s too early for Poe to know what’s happening, but it’s sweet and kind, and so very like him, so Rey nods.

“Yes. Please?” She adds the word as an afterthought, watches Poe relax slightly as he takes his phone out. “And...Poe? It … there’s nothing for you to apologize over. I just. This was a lot. And I’m still...this is new to me. That’s all.”

“I get it.” Poe gives her a sad smile and goes back to typing something on his phone, where he must be ordering the cab.

“I want to see you again,” Rey confesses, and Poe looks up, disbelief on his face. “Seriously. This is - this is -” _Not at all about you, but also definitely about you._ “I want to. If you want to.”

“I really do.” Poe smiles, sagging in relief, and Rey preens almost under how intensely he looks at her. Her phone buzzes, and she looks down to see that _Raf is approaching!_ from an unlisted number.

“Do you want me to walk you down?” Poe asks, still as courteous as ever despite his clear uneasiness with her sudden need to depart.

“I can get there myself,” Rey says, more firmly than she should, if only because she started trying to hold her breath a few minutes ago, and she can’t control her tone as well when she’s focusing on staying calm, focusing on not scenting Poe again, focusing on not diving back into the nest and inviting Poe to make it official. “But - thank you.”

“Of course.” Rey smiles at him before she rushes down the hallway, grabbing her shoes and her coat from the closet full of protest signs. Before she opens the door, she turns to smile and wave at Poe, who’s standing about ten feet away, looking stressed and anxious. “I’m sorry.” She means it. “This really was a lovely evening, and I’m sorry that I-”

“Rey.” She stops talking at the sound of her name in his voice. It’s not an Alpha voice, but it’s firm, and deep, and she wants to listen to him for reasons she can’t analyze at this second. “Never apologize for needing to leave a situation where you feel uncomfortable. I mean that. Your safety means more than my feelings.”

“Thank you.” Rey nods and opens the door, offering him another sharp smile. She curls her hand around her purse, and gets ready to jog down the stairs to the waiting cab.

“Text me as soon as” - Poe catches himself, looking mildly horrified, and blinks twice - “I mean - please, will you let me know you got home safely?”

“Of course.” Rey grips the door handle and closes it. “Bye, Poe.”

Rey gets down the stairs as fast as possible, and hops into the clearly marked Safe Rides cab, entering the chemically neutralized space; she makes the mistake of looking out the window as Raf pulls away from the curb, and she swears she can see the outline of Poe in his living room window, three floors up.

(She tells herself that isn’t her heart she feels breaking)

**

 _What the fuck was that_?

He’s not questioning why Rey suddenly sprinted from his apartment. Poe understands why Rey felt the need to run; the moment between them had been intense, and even _he_ had felt it, and what little he knows about her past, and what he’s been able to glean from her behaviors, suggests that Rey Smith does _not_ care for the unexpected. He doubts she’s had much experience in this arena, _especially_ if she wasn’t aware what nesting really was.

Her scent still hovers in his apartment after she’s gone, and it haunts him just like his almost slip-up, where he’d almost commanded her to text him when she got home.

_He hadn’t done that since he was a teenager._

(Shara had caught him at fifteen, testing out his Alpha voice, and grabbed his ear so hard he thought she’d wrench it off. _We don’t use that voice,_ she’d snarled at him. He’d snarled back, but she was much stronger, and _his mother,_ so she’d won, and then, when they were both calmer, Shara had sat him down and explained it to him, explained consent and autonomy and taking responsibility for oneself, even when it was tempting to hide behind biology and so-called concern for the ‘weaker’ designation).

Poe drags himself to his room, where his blankets are still piled up into an endearing nest, and he swears he can see the indent where Rey’s slender body had been. He resists for as long as possible before he sinks into it, burying his face where her head had rested, and breathes deeply.

It’s a punch to the gut, and his cock hardens instantly. What he smells is what he’d found at the inside of Rey’s wrist - the kind of smell he wants to be fucking buried in, a piece of the universe he was missing and didn’t even realize.

(He thinks, proudly, that this is a good nest. Rey had made a good nest, she should be proud of it, and God, how has he fallen in love with her this fast? He wants her here, wants to curl up around her, feel her heartbeat under his fingertips, feel her warm and real and safe, next to him)

Poe doesn’t fight the urge to unzip his jeans and slip his hand under the waistband of his boxer briefs; he grasps his cock in his hand and strokes once, twice, firmly, his face still buried in the blanket. He feels almost out of control, half kneeling on his bed, the remnants of Rey’s nest around him, and eventually, Poe flops onto his back, pulling the blanket with him so he can keep smelling it (he tries not to hate himself, and he’s pretty sure he fails) as he jerks at his cock with increasing speed.

The flush of her arousal - from when she’d allowed him to scent her wrist, he _knew_ she was aroused, could smell it changing her blood - across her cheeks, the way her freckles looked against the pink: it has Poe groaning, all too easily, his hips jerking into his hand desperately. He works his pants off halfway, and cups his balls in one hand as he continues to stroke his cock.

Eventually, he can feel his knot forming, and while it’s disappointing that he doesn’t have much to do with it, he’s too far into this to stop and grab a toy. So, he uses one hand to squeeze the base of his cock, putting pressure on his knot, as he runs his thumb over the head of his cock. He turns his neck so his nose is buried in the blanket once more, and with a muffled shout, he comes violently, splashing over his hand and shirt, pretending it isn’t Rey’s name he half-sobbed into the covers.

Panting, he lies there and glares at the ceiling, his dry throat working desperately as he tries not to feel too dirty for jacking off to the thought of Rey, to the smell of her.

His phone buzzes, then, saving him from a shame spiral, and Poe rolls over, feeling a surge of guilty relief when he sees Rey’s name.

“Hello?” He picks up immediately and prays she can’t guess what he’s been up to, the evidence of which is coated on his other hand and his shirt.

“Hey.” Rey sounds out of breath as well, but mostly - scared? He sits bolt upright, his skin prickling, nostrils flaring. “I need help.”

“Anything.” Poe gets up and takes his shirt off clumsily with one hand, getting ready to change and run to wherever she needs him. “Whatever you need, I’ll be there - are you safe?”

“Yes.” He relaxes somewhat, but not all the way, because it sounds like she sobbed the word. “I’m so sorry to bother you with this, it’s just-”

“Don’t apologize. Please. Tell me what you need?”

“It’s - it’s too early.” Rey sniffs, and Poe frowns, his soiled shirt loose in his hand now. “It’s about five days early, but they said it could happen, if …” She whispers something he doesn’t quite catch.

“Can you please repeat that, sweetheart? I couldn’t hear.”

“The doctor said my suppressants might slip up if I found a … compatible Alpha.” It sounds like she spits the words out, like she hates them, and Poe flinches, his gut roiling. Then, the pieces fit together - Rey’s an independent person, of course she’d resent compatibility of biology affecting her life without her permission. It’s not her fault they’re compatible (and he’d had his definite, definite suspicions, since he’d walked into the bar and first saw her smile and heard her laugh), and it’s not his fault, they just _are._ And right now, that means she’s being inconvenienced.

He suspects, then, that she’ll ask him to pick something up for her, an emergency suppressant, or a toy, or even Gatorade to help get her through the next few days, but she shocks him instead.

“Can you please help me?”

She can’t mean - “Help you with what?” Poe asks warily, his cock already hardening again. He curses at it silently, _not the time, asshole!_ and waits for her to explain.

“Help me through it.” Rey makes a soft whining noise into the phone, and yeah, his cock is _definitely_ not going anywhere now.

“Of course.” He answers probably too quickly, and honestly, he’s about to charge out of his apartment, without a shirt, hands still dirty, eyes wild, no idea of her address, when she speaks again.

“I - I really … I’m not comfortable…” She hisses something too quiet to hear. “It’s too...I don’t want to…”

“You don’t want to have sex with me,” Poe guesses, his shoulders deflating before he shakes himself. _Not the point._

“I mean...I might? Just? Not like this. Not now. I want to...outside of heat, first, if that’s okay?” She sounds impossibly sad, again, and Poe frowns.

“Why would that bother me?” He asks gently, and when Rey doesn’t respond, another piece of her puzzle slips into place, and Poe curses.

(There are Alphas - a lot of Alphas - who only want to knot Omegas in heat. They think it’s “more pure” or some tyrannical, backwards, outdated bullshit, and they go around, refusing to have sex with an Omega not in heat, because there’s no chance of conception, and less chance of the mating bond sticking. So yeah, Poe has a fair idea why Rey might think he’ll reject her right now)

It terrifies him, to his core, that she trusts him enough to invite him over while she’s in heat, and ask him not to fuck her. Of course he won’t, never without consent, but still. It’s terrifying, elating, and mostly humbling,

“I’ll - I’ll take a suppressant right now,” he says softly. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. When do you want me to come over?”

“I think I have a few hours,” Rey whispers before whimpering again. “I already have toys, I just - it’s hard for me to use them myself when I - when it -”

“I understand,” Poe soothes. He goes to grab another shirt because if he has a few hours, he can go and get water and soft food and heating pads - he’s fucked Omegas in heat before, always as a favor, never in love, so he knows the drill.

(It means so much more this time because it’s _Rey_ and she doesn’t trust anyone, but she’s trusting him, and he _cannot fuck this up_ )

“You get comfortable, sweetheart,” Poe says, crooning almost, and Rey makes another soft noise. “Wear something soft for me?” He curses, having forgotten himself. “Fuck - I mean - Rey, honey, what are you comfortable with, before I get there?”

“Comfortable?”

“You know - like, dirty talk? Commands? Touching?” Poe scratches his neck nervously while he waits for her to respond; instead, he can hear her breathing hitch.

“Can I - text it? It’s hard to - I can’t say it out loud.”

“You can certainly text it to me.” He starts to throw clean clothes onto his bed - he’s not going to be having sex, so he’ll be in a right enough state of mind to change and shower as needed (although she might ask him to lie down next to her the whole time, that’s not unheard of). “Please text it to me.”

“Mhm.” Rey mumbles softly. “I’ll...text you my address, too?”

“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart.”

Rey whispers a response, and he’s the one to hang up, adrenaline and unnameable hormones thrumming in his veins. He takes the emergency high-powered suppressant from his bedside table and takes one, packing another strip of the foil-protected pills in his bag.

A few minutes later, his phone lights up, just as he finishes packing his duffel and shooting a quick email to Leia about not coming into work on Monday and Tuesday (and, he mentions, _maybe Wednesday too,_ but he knows the type of Time Off Requested he listed tells his employer all she really needs to know about his absence from work at the start of the week).

He takes a deep, steadying breath before clicking on the text, which is a list of likes and dislikes, with an increasing number of errors -

_I don’t like being called names._

(Someone had called her - what the fuck? _Not the time to get angry, Dameron_ )

_I don’t think I like to be pushed around._

(Again - what the actual fuck?)

_I like to be held._

(Good, Poe thinks he’ll like holding Rey).

_i like to be told i’m being good_

(His cock is definitely not going to sleep after that one)

_i don’t want to use the knotting toy unexpectedly._

(Poe has a feeling there’s someone in the world out there he needs to kill, but that’s for another time)

_i am okay with you seeing me naked and dont care if you are to_

(His brain goes off line for a second)

_touching is ok but not touching touching and kissing is ok and i dont mind dirty talk but no commands this time_

(Makes sense)

_i dont want to have sex. even if i ask? which i definitely will. Im sorry._

“ _Don’t be sorry,_ ” he texts back quickly. “ _And I’ll be there as soon as you need me. If you think of anything else, just let me know._ ”

He brushes his teeth and washes his hands and face thoroughly before tugging on his softest sweatshirt. Poe laces up his boots, and texts his dad that an emergency came up, if he doesn’t mind watching Beatrice - he also explains that he probably won’t be looking at his phone either (that’s going to invite some deeply personal questions from his father, but Poe trusts that Kes will wait until Tuesday or Wednesday to start hounding him for details).

His phone buzzes one last time, and his heart skips a beat -

_Ive never had sex outside of heat so thats why im being so weird about this. i want it to mean something with u_

Poe’s going to die, he’s sure of it, and they’ll have to list Rey as cause of death. He locks his apartment up behind him and runs down the steps to his motorcycle, figuring he’ll have time to grab some snacks on the way. But his phone buzzes again -

_srry. heat talking. starting early. pls come._

“ _I’ll be right there._ ”

A pinned address appears in the text thread, and Poe kicks away from the curb and drives off through the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!! I know this is...kinkier than the Damerey fandom usually gets, so I'm so happy people are reading and responding to it so far.
> 
> The real smut starts next chapter, and honestly, if this scene starts to take up any more space, this will have to be a four chapter fic (oops)


	3. Good Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe and Rey experience their first heat as a couple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE WE GO!
> 
> ABO smut times (not full smut, as the focus isn't so much on smutty smutty kinky sex, but Poe and Rey building trust in their dynamic )
> 
> WARNING: Poe uses sex toys on Rey while she's mid-heat (this was consented to in the last chapter when she told him what she was okay with). Poe only does things Rey gave him permission to do before her heat took over some of her opinions/control.

Rey hasn’t felt like this since she was 18.

The suppressants have mostly done their job, have mostly kept her from writhing in total agony while waiting for the waves of  _ need  _ to pass, but this unplanned heat has caught her completely off-guard.

She isn’t sure how much time passes after she texts Poe - she thinks she hates herself, for a few seconds, but mostly she just needs him here, now, needs to see him and feel him and smell him. 

It must have been  _ hours,  _ and he still isn’t here. Part of her balks in terror, thinking that something bad happened, that he got into an accident, that he couldn’t find her apartment, that she’d dreamed him up this whole time, and she’s still eighteen and scared and alone - then it hits her.

_ He isn’t coming.  _

(And why would he? Even in the middle of the initial stage of her heat, Rey remembers that this is Poe Dameron, a strong and powerful Alpha. She’s seen the way other Omegas look at him in public. Hell, she’s seen how Betas look at him. She knows that he and Finn had a fling way back when, knows that Poe’s even dated other Alphas - what if he met someone on the way over and decided that they were better than Rey? Isn’t everyone better than Rey?)

There’s a knock at her door, and Rey looks up from where she’s sitting, collapsed near her coffee table. She feels a sob building in her chest, and she scowls at the door, scowls at it for bothering her when she’s in pain and alone and abandoned  _ again _ . 

Another knock - and through the door she can hear him.

“Rey?”

It’s Poe. Rey stumbles as she gets up and walks to the door, her arms wrapped tight around her middle. She opens the door and he’s there and she wants to cry but also yank him into her apartment and slam the door shut because he looks too good to be true.

“Did you get lost?”

“What?” Poe walks in after she gestures for him to enter, and he stands in her foyer looking at her with no small concern.

“It’s just...it’s been hours.”

Poe holds his phone out to her with a gentle smile, and she manages to read the words and timestamp on the screen. “You texted me 18 minutes ago, Rey. I came right over.”

“Oh.” Tears fill her eyes, and another wave of pain hits her. “Oh no.” She covers her mouth with her hand, too embarrassed and uncomfortable to speak, and Poe makes a soft noise and holds his arms out to her.

When she walks into his arms, she feels immediately safer - but also confused. Rey puts her nose against his neck and breathes deeply - if she weren’t so … so…  _ warm,  _ she’d be embarrassed or apologetic - and then frowns into his shirt. “Why do you smell like that?”

“Military grade suppressants,” he admits sheepishly. “They uh - give them to you overseas so you don’t…y’know. Try to …”

“Hump everything in sight?” Rey guesses snidely before wincing in pain. She wouldn’t mind humping  _ something  _ right now, and she scolds herself for the thought. 

“Something like that.” Poe kisses the side of her head, and she relaxes even more because he’s  _ here. Alpha is here.  _ “Sweet girl.”

Rey whimpers and works herself further into his arms, and Poe makes no move to push her away, or call her needy, or tease her. Instead, she gets to enjoy the pulse of his blood, right under her ear, so close to her nose. Even if he’s stifled under the intense suppressant - and part of her is pleased, the part not dominated by the surge of hormones in her system, pleased that he’d go to such lengths to ensure his own designation wouldn’t tip the balance of their relationship in this moment of her vulnerability - Poe still smells incredible.

She wants to curl up in it, up in him, and she has half a mind to. In her need to be closer to him, she accidentally pushes him back a few feet, and she tenses, horrified. Rey knows that she’s strong, that she’s tall, too tall, too strong for an omega (she’s never been  _ soft,  _ even when she was so thin you could wrap a hand around her arm at the thickest part, and even now, she’s still slender, still thin, but strong, flat and wiry where she should be soft and giving), but Poe doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Eager little thing, huh?” His voice has that distinct rasp to it again, the one she heard in his bedroom, and Rey nods quickly, too caught up in his presence to feel mortification (she’ll feel that later, probably, when he never calls her again, because what the fuck is she doing? Why did she call him here? To drive him away?).

His hands wrap around her, right under her ass, and Poe hefts her into his arms. Rey wraps her legs around his waist, trying to ignore the way need and want pool tellingly from her core. “Do you need to go to bed, sweetheart?” He croons, and Rey just about faints from the unexpected surge of  _ joy.  _ Her Alpha is  _ strong,  _ and he doesn’t care that she is too, doesn’t care that she’s defective. Poe noses under her jaw, and Rey makes a noise she never has before, a cross between a purr and a groan and a snarl. Poe just laughs sweetly. “Where to, Sunshine?”

(That’s a new nickname, but Rey doesn’t have much room for side thoughts right now)

“Bedroom.” Her voice is muffled by Poe’s neck, which she refuses to emerge from. “Please?” 

“Can do.” 

There’s the swaying of movement, then, and Poe carries her through her apartment; she wishes he  _ wasn’t  _ on suppressants, so her apartment could start to smell like him, nothing but him and her. Even with the musk of his Alpha nature suppressed, he’s still absolutely delicious, a smell she never wants to forget or lose. Rey licks at the spot under his ear as he tests out the doors in her hallway, and she’s rewarded by the rumble of something not quite a laugh in his chest. 

“Not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

“Make what easy?” Rey mumbles, returning to the little spot under his ear, a few inches above his gland, and she loves the way it turns pink, loves the way his skin tastes.

“Finding your bedroom, silly.”

“Not that many doors, lazy,” Rey grumbles. ( _ Bad Omega, _ she thinks, _ bad Omegas tease their Alpha _ ).

Poe laughs, warmly, and her chastising thought vanishes quickly. “You’re trouble.” He strokes a hand down her back, and Rey preens, marveling at the way he holds her with one arm, like she weighs nothing, like she’s tiny and precious. “I like it.”

“I like you,” Rey whispers, and Poe makes a definite rumble at that, right before he opens her bedroom door and walks in.

He sets her down carefully on the bed, and Rey pouts the second his hands leave her body. “Come back.” She makes grabby hands at him, and Poe smiles at her before setting his duffel bag on the floor. 

“I’m getting something for you.” He unzips the bag and takes out a blanket that looks impossibly soft - it’s the one from his bed, the orange one that Rey had loved so much a few hours ago.

She takes it with a squeal, and Poe watches her as she starts to pull up all the blankets from her bed, starts to heap them together, placing pillows here and there sporadically. Every now and then, she stops and frowns, trying to think of what’s missing, and then Poe will appear, offering her his hand - he lets her wrap blankets around his secondary scent gland, lets him mark the blankets, and she feels a thrill of triumph as the nest starts to smell like both of them; he offers her pillows, too, from the floor, and one from his bag, and she thinks  _ good Alpha, helpful, provider,  _ as she giddily builds up a soft and warm and welcoming nest for them both.

Rey looks up after a few minutes and realizes that Poe’s gone, and she feels a spiral of panic in her chest -  _ where did he go what did she do where did he go bad Omega bad, bad - _

“Hey.” Poe runs through the door, looking alarmed, and Rey sags against the nest, relief flooding her system. “Hey, sweetheart, no, I was just getting this ready” - he holds out a sock, and Rey wrinkles her nose at it, her hand pressed to her stomach as more cramps hit her. Preliminary heat is the weirdest, she’s decided, before the total horniness sets in - this part where she’s bloated and cranky and needy is definitely her least favorite part, and that’s saying something, as Rey  _ hates  _ being a subject to her biological need to reproduce. “You don’t have a heating pad,” Poe explains, and Rey nods. “So I made one.”

He hands it to her, and Rey realizes he’s put some rice into the sock, tied it up and -

“Microwaved,” Poe admits sheepishly. “I wanted to go out and get you supplies, but this will have to do,”

Rey stares at him in shock.

He brought her a blanket, and he made this heating pad, and he’s been handing her pillows as she’s built her nest - he’s a  _ good Alpha,  _ and a good provider, and God, she wants him so badly she can’t see straight.

“You made a wonderful nest,” Poe compliments, and he puts the sock in her hand, guiding it to her abdomen. The warmth spreads through her stomach, relaxing her tense muscles slightly. Poe helps guide her onto her side, and he strokes circles into her back. 

“Yeah?” Rey whispers. Tentative hope fills her chest.

“It’s a beautiful nest,” Poe says sweetly, stroking hair out of her eyes. “The best I’ve ever seen. You did so well.”

Rey’s mouth hangs open, torn between unbridled joy and lust as the words wash over her. Combined with the warmth of his voice and the warmth of the improvised heating pad, Rey realizes she also feels very, very - 

“Are you tired, baby?”

“Mhm.” Rey curls up even more, and wiggles into the nest. 

“Do you want me to join you or sit out here?”

“Come here.” Rey knows she begs him, knows her voice borders on pitiful, but Poe doesn’t mock her. He just climbs onto the bed carefully, and slides into the nest next to her. He sighs in contentment when he wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head. “...Did good?” She’s falling asleep even as she asks the question.

“You did so well, sweetheart.” More warmth floods her system at the words, and she drifts off to sleep with his lips in her hair and his words in her ear. “Good girl.”

When she wakes up, the world is on  _ fire,  _ and her thoughts barely make sense, but there’s one fact she can’t deny: no amount of suppressants can make the scent of Poe Dameron, wrapped around her and permeating their nest, unappealing.

Her full heat is here.

**

Rey sleeps for about an hour and a half before she wakes up; Poe has to deal with the very specific agony of smelling when her heat arrives.

His nose is blunted by the meds in his system, and he thanks God and every other potential deity for the fact that he still had a few sets from his days in the military. As a pilot who was often deployed for months at a time, he’d needed them, and when he’d been discharged, they hadn’t asked for them back.

Rey needs him, and she needs him to be in control of himself; she  _ trusts  _ him, and he would much rather die than betray that trust.

It’s a sign of their compatibility though, that this proximity to her as she begins her heat is threatening the effectiveness of the strongest rut-suppressants known to man, literal military grade medication designed for the toughest, meanest, most Alpha Alphas who’ve ever lived.

(Rey smells better than anything he’s ever encountered, and Poe dizzily wonders what this will be like if and when it happens  _ for real,  _ when she asks him to be there for her in every possible way, when he isn’t bogged down by suppressants)

Poe slides out of the nest for a few minutes towards the end of her nap - he can tell by the way her face is twitching, the way her little hands close and open, that she’s going to wake up soon - to grab the box of toys she’d left out on the bedside table. When he opens it, he examines the contents -

A few dildos, a vibrator, and a knotting toy. He frowns at the first dildo and shakes his head. It’s not the best toy he’s ever seen, much too small and rubbery to be satisfying, so he throws it back in the box and grabs a bullet vibrator and a dildo that looks more like his own cock does when it’s half-hard outside of rut. That will have to do.

Rey shifts on the bed next to him, her legs twisting in the blankets, and Poe forces himself to breathe through his mouth, to push through the waves of scent that wash over him from her movement.  _ God, he wants her. _

She doesn’t want him.

She just wants his help.

He forces himself to remember that, forces his Alpha instinct down as far as it can go, and lies back down next to her, toys ready to go.

Her eyes open a few minutes later, and instantly lock onto him. 

“ _ Alpha. _ ”

It’s started, then, and Poe feels very, very aware of every point of contact they share - her foot on his shin, her knee against his thigh, her hand on his arm. 

“Rey,” he murmurs, nosing along her hairline again, finding only the smell of sweet, overwhelming Omega - her typical desert-flower-sun smell has become both amplified and diminished by the scent of her heat. “What do you need?”

Rey whimpers and shifts against the sheets, her face turning brighter and brighter red as she struggles to find the words. Poe takes pity on her and pulls the sheets back slightly from his own body; Rey surges in with greedy hand and tugs at his shirt. He helps her pull it off, and she rubs her nose against his bare chest, her purring undeniable. 

She manages to clumsily remove her own shirt; Poe stops her for a moment, his hand gentle but very much present as it wraps around her thin forearm. “Are you sure?” he whispers, but Rey nods eagerly. 

“Yes.” The shirt’s thrown to the floor a second later, leaving her in a tank top that she strips off as well. Poe averts his eyes to the end of the bed until she huffs at him - at that point, he can’t do anything but look, sweat forming on his palms the second he lays eyes on her. 

She’s beautiful, of course, and he knows if he opens his mouth, a growl, proprietary and unstoppable, will come out. So he keeps his mouth shut and his eyes wide open.

“Now?” He asks, once he’s calmed down slightly, and Rey nods eagerly, tugging at the waistband of her sweatpants until they fall off - he’s too polite to have stared at the spot that shows how quickly her heat has progressed, and he’s too polite -- too suppressed, really - to grab her sweatpants when she shucks them off and examine them closely. 

Still though, now he has to contend with Rey totally naked, her chest painted red as she smiles at him, reclining against the blankets, a hand extended to him. 

“This one first?” He offers, waving the dildo he’d picked out. Rey’s eyes widen and she smiles widely, eagerly. Poe lies down next to her, one arm braced above her head, his fingers trailing along her shoulder as he traces a path down her thigh with the toy. Rey half-snarls, half-whimpers in anticipation, and he laughs, kisses her forehead, and whispers nothing but wondering praise to her as he rubs the head of the dildo along her weeping cunt and gently pushes in, his hand wrapped firmly along the base of the toy so he won’t touch her with his own body (not until he has permission, which he doesn’t, not according to the list she sent over earlier).

It seems to help for the time being, and Rey’s eyes flutter shut as she exhales with a shaky, impressive, “ _ Oh, _ ” a breathy noise that goes right to his cock. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs, starting to fuck her gently with the toy, picking up the pace when she grabs his wrist and tries to direct the movements with more force. “You’re doing so well.”

Rey keens and rubs at her clit, eyes closed still, a smile on her red face, and he watches, mystified, as her back arches up - the movement emphasizing how prominent her ribs are, something that sends deep concern flashing through his arousal - her face twisting in a lovely grimace of concentration right before she twitches, her legs pressing intently against the covers as she comes for the first time.

He leaves the toy in - she mumbles a complaint when he tries to pull it out - and kisses her forehead and nose again, running his tongue along her jaw and neck, nipping the skin ever so lightly above her mating gland, but not on it (again, not until he has permission, no matter how tempting and delicious it is, so close to his mouth). Her muscles seize up again as she hits another, secondary, aftershock of an orgasm, and Poe praises her for that too, kissing her collarbone serenely as her breath evens out.

(It’s a pattern after that, of Poe fucking her with the various toys she demands - she asks him to fuck her, really fuck her, only twice. He politely declines both times, and the second time her face screws up like she’s going to cry, and she whispers  _ It’s okay, I’m not what any Alpha wants.  _ It makes him growl for real before he kisses her and assures her  _ You’re all I want, never wanted anyone like I want you, I want to fuck you, but not until you want it too, baby, want to knot you, need to hear you ask for it, can’t wait to knot you, it’s all I want _ , and that does the trick for now, at least, it does after Rey rolls him onto his back - definitely the first Omega he’s seen who’s tried to dominate an Alpha mid-heat and he’d be a fucking liar if he said he didn’t like it - and licks every scent gland she can find, sucking kisses into them with her clever mouth, and even though this  _ definitely  _ isn’t about him, Poe comes in his pants like a teenager, just from her touching him there, just from her mouth on his skin, and Rey tosses her hair out, still bright red in the face, and lets out a purr so loud, it could be a roar, and he loves it, he loves her).

Eventually, he works her up to needing the knotting toy, and she asks him to inflate it for her. He does so, using one hand to pump the toy, and the other to stroke her sweaty hair as he stares into her lovely, wide eyes; even through the suppressants, Poe knows he’s never been this turned on, can feel his cock hardening again, even through the sticky mess already in his pants. 

When he inflates the knot all the way, feeling it lock in her small body when the toy won’t move anymore, Rey’s eyes flutter shut again, her face screwing up, and she screams so loudly, he worries he’s hurt her. But no, she’s coming, coming beautifully, her hands grabbing at his bare chest as she comes again and again, and it’s the single most amazing moment of his life so far.

(Poe realizes something very important, then: he will never be able to have sex with anyone who isn’t her, not after this. This is it. Rey Smith is the only person he’s ever going to want, even if this is all he gets, helping her through heats, his own knot unattended and pressing against his zipper hard enough to make him grit his teeth, even as his heart hammers in his chest at the sight of Rey writhing next to him)

Right before she falls asleep - she’ll be awake in a few hours, he knows, and he’ll be up in the meantime to get food and water to help her recover from the first round, and he has a feeling it’ll be an uphill battle to get his sweet, stubborn Omega to drink or eat something when she’s still mid-heat - Rey mumbles something that has him frowning.

“What was that, sweetheart?”

“Said - never been knotted before,” Rey whispers.

“No?” Poe cocks his head and strokes her arm delicately. She shivers and snuggles deeper into his chest, nodding slightly.

“Never had sex with - with an Alpha during heat,” she admits, and Poe realizes that this means she’s never had sex with an Alpha before  _ at all.  _ “Not that they didn’t try.”

A snarl builds in his chest, audible to his ears, and he tenses, forcing the instinct to  _ fight defend hunt  _ down at the thought of some fucker of an Alpha trying to make Rey do something she didn’t want -

“Broke his jaw,” she says, yawning delicately, and he grins at her, the urge to fight dissipating slightly.

“Brave Omega,” he compliments, running the backs of his fingers along her sharp jaw. Rey smiles, eyes still closed.

“But I trust you.” Rey relaxes against his chest, and he tightens his arms around her. “I trust you. Only you.”

“Yeah?” Poe’s heart pounds in his chest hard enough that she has to hear it. “Rey, sweetheart-”

_ I love you - _

It gets cut off by another one of her ferocious yawns. “Thank you,” she whispers, and then she’s asleep, and all Poe can do is watch his brave, strong Omega sleep; when she wakes, it’ll be back to taking care of her through her heat, and while the thought definitely intrigues him, what he really, really wants, is for her to be out of it, so he can tell her that he loves her, so that she’ll remember it, and believe him.

And, maybe he can even work on earning her love in return. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay okay okay so I know it says this fic is "finished' but let's be real -
> 
> I have about another 8000 words written, and like.......ten more scenes outlined.
> 
> Other things to get to:
> 
> Rey/Poe having sex outside of heat
> 
> Rey/Poe opening up about their respective traumas and past
> 
> Poe taking Rey to an Omega Rights march (and the appearance of a counterprotest in the shape of First Order there)
> 
> Poe and Rey discussing heat sex, anddddd
> 
> Full ABO smut
> 
>  
> 
> So, what do you think? Does this need to be a full, giant, 6-8 chapter smutfest fic?!?!? Does this interest people??!?


End file.
